A Look Into The Belief Of The Reincarnation Of The Soul According To Hinduism

The belief of reincarnation has seemingly become a lot more popular in recent years. Perhaps as more and more people are stepping away from a mainstream version of religion, they are adopting a more open perception when it comes to “the soul” and what happens to it once the body dies. Along with stepping away from religion. It seems that many “new agers” are adopting a belief system that the soul is here to learn, grow, and evolve and that all souls are actually a part of one consciousness that some call God, the Universe, Source or All That Is. Whatever you call it, many are resonating with this idea, and often acknowledge reincarnation that is also a widespread belief of those who follow the Hindu religion. So what exactly is this belief? Let’s have a look at what Hinduism teaches about reincarnation.

Reincarnation According To Hinduism

According to Hinduism, a soul will reincarnate again and again on Earth until it has learned all it’s lessons, evolved and then reunites with Source. During this process the soul will enter into many bodies being born again and again and dying again and again, assuming many different forms until it has learned all of the lessons it set out to learn. This concept is summarized in the following verse of the Bhagavad gita:

Just as a man discards worn out clothes and puts on new clothes, the soul discards worn out bodies and ears new ones.” (2.22)

According to Hinduism, a soul has to live many different lifetimes and undergo a substantial amount of various experiences before it attains perfection and becomes one with the Divine, or Source, or God, or whatever it is that you feel comfortable calling, It. The Hindu Theory of Creation begins when the individual souls become separated from the One. It then continues as the evolution of life and consciousness and gradually progresses on Earth in phases. During this process, some souls will return to Source through the transformation of matter, also known as Prakriti, in which they remain hidden and bound. The rest of the souls continue on their journey and return to God in the end, not through the same transformation but through the great destruction that happens at the end of each time cycle. The belief is that this great cycle of creation, which stretches over millions of years will then come to its end.

When the cycle begins, each soul is drawn and bound to a false personality which is known as jiva -loosely translated to living being. This jiva, standing for all living forms by the way, not just humans, it’s also known as the ’embodied self’ or the ‘elemental self’. It has an inner subtle body and an outer gross body. The soul remains encased within the subtle body, which is also known as the linga sarira, this body is made up of the subtle sense, the subtle mind, breath, ego and our intelligence. The gross body is made up of the animal mind, the elemental body and it’s organs – this is the physical aspect of the mind/body/computer. Each jiva has an ego-sense which arises from perceptions, knowledge, memories, desires or attachments and the feeling of diversity and separation -this is all part of the grand plan. Because of this ego-sense of awareness the jiva remains unaware of it’s true identity and experiences a form of delusion (moha), duality (dvanda), attraction (raga) and aversion (dvesa) to the opposing pairs like heat and cold or pain and pleasure. The jiva acts as though they are different and separate from the rest of all creation, this is what offers our souls the lessons that we need in order to grow and evolve. Egosim causes the desire-ridden actions and selfishness and the souls end up suffering because of it.

The body is essentially a prison and the soul is held within it as the prisoner. When the body dies the physical body and gross mind return to the earth, but the subtle body survives and then accompanies the soul to the next lifetime.

Is There More To This?

Of course, there is a lot more to this belief system and many more layers and levels in the scriptures about this whole process of life and death, birth and rebirth.

What is interesting is that we are starting to hear more and more stories of children who actually vividly remember their past lives. Some accounts are so clear and detailed with information that they simply could not have known otherwise which is causing many non-believers to at least question the theory of reincarnation. Surely, there must be something to this. You can read more about these stories HERE.

There was a really good movie that came out a few years ago called I Origins that covered this topic quite extensively in the form of a compelling cinematic film. What are your beliefs around the topic? Whether you are religious or not, how does the theory of reincarnation sit with you? Have you had any past life regression therapy or had some kind of innate knowing that this is the answer? [… read more]

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Great Ocean

The Hindu version of reincarnation is nihilistic and absurd. We need not emulate it. Also, their terminology is completely foreign to us, we should instead find or invent counterparts for the words, rooted in European etymology. Many people wonder why the Hindus are so unfit for life and politically unstable despite their obviously firm belief in reincarnation. That is because, not only are they divided by their caste system and hindered by centuries of British oppression engrafted into their history, but they also hold that humans can reincarnate as animals or plants (which would counteract all development)… Read more »

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6 months ago

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mothman777

“The Hindu version of reincarnation is nihilistic” Not so, try reading Sri Brahma Samhita and the Achintya Bhedabheda Tattva philosophy of Vaishnavism, which is not actually ‘Hinduism’ but taken by many as a part of it. http://www.harekrsna.de/artikel/Brahma-Samhita-Complete.pdf The article above represents an overly simplistic view. Judaism is a limited form of advaitism, meaning that Judaism considers all Jewish (but no other souls) to be one ultimately, and to be God, whilst all other souls are considered by Judaism to be eternally inferior and irredeemably demonic, from hell, from three lower, satanic spheres of creation. The eternal spiritual… Read more »

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6 months ago

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Great Ocean

>Judaism is a limited form of advaitism, meaning that Judaism considers all Jewish (but no other souls) to be one ultimately, and to be God, whilst all other souls are considered by Judaism to be eternally inferior and irredeemably demonic, from hell, from three lower, satanic spheres of creation.

The Jews have never once conceived of a god. Jahwe is purely a plot device, to be discarded after he’s served his purpose.

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6 months ago

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mothman777

@ Great Ocean Indeed, I quite understand already that the Jewish religion is largely nothing more than a front for a very hostile psychic collective that the Jews use to infiltrate society in other nations, and I have made this very point at length in other comments to articles on this site, and this truth about the Jews becomes apparent even more so when we consider that Jews state that their invented God ‘Jahweh’ does not exist anywhere in heaven but as every Jew on Earth. I do consider that the Jews have access to an immense… Read more »

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6 months ago

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Bobby

Yes, reincarnation and the immortal soul is logical. But then what is happening here on this planet? Why are we incarnating over and over on the same planet and having our memories wiped each time? Unable to learn our lessons, or at least making it very difficult to do so. Old traumas from previous lives affecting as, but we are unable to see the origins of this psychological and energetic trauma. Some propose that there is some sort of soul trap, as well as some sort of after life in ‘false-light’ realms. I know from personal experience… Read more »

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6 months ago

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Morningstar

I have also read about that theory. That somewhere on the dark side of the moon is a machine that recycle all souls back to the prison planet earth. Supposedly it is where the dark tunnel leads to. But I have also read about people who remember lives on other planets than ours.

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6 months ago

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Bobby

I have the feeling, and from what I have seen from research, that you as a soul can perhaps volunteer to incarnate here if you are from other star systems – often to try and help – but these souls also have their memory wiped as well when they incarnate – and you are not able to escape this planets reincarnation cycle until whatever is controlling this planet physically and multidimensionally has been overcome. Who knows… but something very strange is happening. I have other dimensional experiences in the night, I see other worlds… other beings… but… Read more »

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6 months ago

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Amiens

The thing is that as far as I can tell life on Earth should be rather pleasant were it not for forced Semitism, which begins in their hospitals where they torture fetuses and newborns.
Interesting comment though. I’m very much interested in these matters.

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6 months ago

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Nate

Amiens – I don’t think so. I think the duality of pain and pleasure is inescapable on this plane of existence. But, pain matters and has gravity and this fight still must be fought, because we are in the material and so that we can create a system that cultivates enlightenment for our people and the rest of the world, through being a shining example.

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6 months ago

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Amiens

Can you be specific? If we weren’t being “jewed” century after century the world would be a totally different place. We would have all kinds of technologies to make life better and more comfortable. In fact kids still rather enjoy this reality, as do the blissfully ignorant, and the Jews get away with as much as they do because of the fundamental goodness of life, that even when they abuse and rob it as thoroughly as they do, it still remains something good enough that it is worth preserving. There is no doubt in mind that life… Read more »

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6 months ago

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Great Ocean

Curiosity about a past life is forbidden for good reason. If man knew what kind of atrocities he did in previous lives, he wouldn’t be able to bear that burden. Furthermore, the problem is not starting off from a disadvantageous position, but that the ruling powers are typically disorientated. “They must strive to find ways and means of abolishing what actually exists.” If the capable and bold people were to secure control of the world and it’s resources, then life doesn’t have to be a prison.

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6 months ago

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Bobby

I disagree on that point. I see no purpose to having your memory wiped of past lives – it causes immeasurable confusion and pain – which can snowball. Souls end up making the same mistakes over and over, causing needless pain to others and themselves. Not everyone has committed atrocities in past lives, most haven’t – but they have made mistakes which led them to being oppressed and manipulated – but they cannot remember how this occurred, they can’t learn from it – they cannot use that knowledge to overcome.

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6 months ago

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Great Ocean

That’s the whole point: they must learn to deliver themselves from their misfortunes. If they retained a millennia of experience, everything would come easy. Life is meant to be a struggle. Besides, knowledge is recollection. By coming into contact with certain literature or ideas, the memory is restored.

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6 months ago

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Bobby

‘Great Ocean’ – I use to think like that when I was working my way through all the new age spirituality philosophies but I don’t anymore. I believe it is a free-will universe and beings can be enslaved, and souls can be blasted with frequencies to erase soul memories. All this ‘It’s just a cosmic game’ or ‘It’s just a learning experience’ or ‘Life is meant to be struggle’ . Or even ‘Only love is real’ or ‘It’s all an illusion’ or ‘We are all one’ or ‘The ascension wave of energy is coming soon’. It’s all… Read more »

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6 months ago

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Jan

Bobby, if you believe in Satan and demons, then you also believe in witches and vampires, as all these memes have been imposed by Christianity. The word ‘demon’ has its origin in ancient Greece where it was used as a metaphor for the ‘creative power’. Satan, and the accompanying disgraced number 666 is the atomic composition of the most common isotope of carbon (6 protons, 6 neutrons and 6 electrons), the second most abundant element in the human body by mass (about 18.5%) after oxygen, from which allegedly all life on earth developed. Finally, the 13th (fallen)… Read more »

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6 months ago

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Nate

Bobby – That’s a good point though. Perhaps it is up to us to destroy the demons (Yahweh and his minions) that keep this world in lower state of enlightenment. To bring the world out of the muck of bestial impulse to a higher state of consciousness. Please forgive the New Age jargon, I just don’t know what other words to use. This requires war against the powers of Evil. Plus, in Hinduism, there is much literature and many interpretations. I don’t believe for a second that the original Hindus were soft or pacifistic. In fact in… Read more »

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6 months ago

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Great Ocean

@Bobby Then why are you on this site, which shares sympathies with NatSoc, which taught that life was a struggle?

@Nate That sounds awfully gnostic to me. Surely no cosmic being in existence shares the qualities ascribed to Jahwe. This is the great error of gnosticism, they know the Jews, but they also recognize their deity as legitimate. Also, there’s nothing “new age” about consciousness. It was accepted into the scientific spheres long before WW2.

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6 months ago

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Bobby

If National Socialism is all about the notion that ‘life is meant to be a struggle’, why did Hitler and the NSDAP implement such fantastic economic and social reforms and turn German into an abundant county? Why did Hitler go to such great lengths to make the German people’s lives better – increased holidays, affordable cars… I could go on… and why was he researching Free Energy technology? National Socialism is a system that makes life less of a struggle. And just merely not being a debt slave would surely make everyones life less of a struggle.

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6 months ago

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Amiens

Bobby, good point. From my childhood until now I’ve been naive, gullible, susceptible to the manipulations of adult psychopaths. Because any past life memory was wiped clean, I was operating blind, totally innocent. Those adults were preying on me knowing that I had no capacity to understand that they lacked any moral compass and that their humanity was all an act to con and exploit me. As for abductions by aliens during sleep, I’m more inclined to believe you were dreaming. People aren’t really so vulnerable during sleep. They’re easily awoken, and it seems way out there… Read more »

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6 months ago

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Bobby

I hear you, I can empathize with the skepticism. But they were actual experiences – one was very physical indeed. And I am totally with you that ufology is controlled by Jewish agents. But there are testimonies out there that are genuine.

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6 months ago

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Aldebaran

We don’t remember our birth and we have just only rare images from the 4 first years of our life .How could we have the memories of an other life that we have, perhaps, lived several centuries ago) We are a total different human being from life to life ,with complete expériences to achieve .The sum of our behaviors in each life is recorded in our “soul” . This is why we have to be a good person in this new experience of life . Even if we were a tyrant in a previous life or a… Read more »

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6 months ago

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Nate

If you knew for certain that this wasn’t permanent and that you would reincarnate and you remembered your past lives, would you really be able to experience life in a real way? Like in the movie Total Recall, if Arnold Schwarzenegger knew that his virtual vacation memories of the planet Mars weren’t real, it would have defeated the purpose and he would have wasted his money.

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6 months ago

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Nate

If you knew for certain that this wasn’t permanent and that you would reincarnate and you remembered your past lives, would you really be able to experience life in a real way? Like in the movie Total Recall, if Arnold Schwarzenegger knew that his virtual vacation memories of the planet Mars weren’t real, it would have defeated the purpose and he would have wasted his money.

This is actually cobalt-59, which on detonation would be transmuted into highly radioactive cobalt-60, rather than the cobalt 40 that I mentioned earlier. The device would be able to devastate an area several hundred miles inland, though most reports on this issue do not state that.